Improve Your Networking Skills

Hate the interpersonal aspects of career advancement? Networking for People Who Hate Networking could be the book for you. The fact is that your distaste for networking is far from unusual, but it's holding you back. An IT pro usually can't move up the ladder or get a great, new job on talent and performance alone. The good news is that there are many ways to overcome resistance to networking and emerge as a more engaging, sociable person as a result. In the new book, Networking for People Who Hate Networking: A Field Guide for Introverts, the Overwhelmed, and the Underconnected (Berrett-Koehler/now available), author Devora Zack reveals a host of easy-to-adapt best practices and simple tricks that can help anyone succeed at these events. Zack is president of Only Connect Consulting Inc., which provides coaching to more than 100 clients, including SAIC, AOL, the Smithsonian Institution, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Education. Here are some of the more insights from the book:

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Improve Your Networking Skills

1. At least 50 percent of Americans are introverts who are naturally disinclined to pursue traditional, in-person networking.